


Weak Point

by TF_Pratchet



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alien Planet, Anger, Angst and Feels, Apologies, Arguing, Banter, Cold Weather, Cuddling & Snuggling, Discussion of Regeneration, Explanations, Fainting, Fear of Death, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forgiveness, Huddling For Warmth, Humiliation, Hypocrisy, Hypothermia, Insults, Late at Night, Medical Trauma, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Pride, Recovery, Rescue Missions, Snow and Ice, Storms, Sunsets, Temporal Paradox, Trapped, Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:13:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TF_Pratchet/pseuds/TF_Pratchet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An adventure, mixed with a paradox, goes awry. When forced to take shelter together from a killer storm, how much can two Doctors avoid each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weak Point

“You look like a drowned owl.”

“And _you_ look like a drowned otter. I prefer the owl, thank you very much!”

The Second Doctor, looking over his right shoulder, matched the strength of the Third’s glare, wishing he could leap to his feet, putting on full height and accepting the challenge, but that would only result in self-concussing on the low rock overhang. As it was, the old chap was a good head taller than him, even sitting behind and to the right in order to accommodate the ceiling and his legs simultaneously. Besides, the Second felt as miserable as he apparently looked, so he didn’t rise to the bait the Third had set.

“Well, Doctor,” Two began at last, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his wet jacket loosely around them. “Why do you suppose the Trichians gave up on executing us?”

He could feel Three giving him an intense stare before scanning the sleet pounding the planet all around them. “Do you remember the tapestries in the palace? They’re superstitious, think their gods rule the sky. In their mythology, sleet is probably a bad omen or something of the like.”

Lifting his eyebrows until they slipped under his stringy bangs, the Second Doctor twisted to face him more fully. “Are you quite sure about that? They seemed as though they were celebrating as they ran back. Perhaps they think their gods are going to deal with us personally?”

“Well, if you apparently know so much, why did you inquire?!” the Third Doctor snapped, folding his arms crossly and flinging icy water from the cuffs of his sleeves.

“My word, must you always be underestimating me?” the Second demanded. “I’m not so dim as you seem to think!”

The Third rolled his eyes, laughing humorlessly. “You’re fooling no one but yourself, you know.”

“Exactly! You _are_ myself! You know how I think, so why is it that you can never seem to accept that I’m just as sharp as you? Sharp enough for both of us, in fact!”

“Oh, now _you’re_ judging _my_ intelligence? I tell you, I was never aware of your hypocrisy before—”

“Yours,” the Second growled. “It’s yours as well, sir, and I’ll say that’s the biggest proof of hypocrisy yet so I suggest we declare ourselves hypocrites and stop the conversation here before I get any more angry and the prospect of your future—and by extension mine—gets any dimmer!”

A long silence, broken only by the sleet’s harsh hiss, stretched between the two. Both knew that whatever the cause, the argument they’d just had was beyond their past spats. They had crossed a line and they knew the other knew. One would try to find words and then recoil, uncomfortable with trying to progress since both still felt they were somehow in the right.

“The sun’s going down,” the Third Doctor eventually muttered. “Which will bring—”

“—a drop in the temperature,” the Second Doctor finished his sentence, genuine worry flitting across his features. “I know. It feels as though we’ve been here for days.”

“Well, technically we have,” the Third remarked, noticing but kindly making no comment about the surprise he sensed from the younger Doctor. “Before our sentence to death, I was talking with our palace guide. He said days on Trichi are longer than ours, so we’ve likely been here a day or two by our standards.”

“Hmm…I didn’t know that,” Two admitted in a mumble, shifting so he could sit on his damp hands. “Thank you for explaining.”

They said nothing else as the sun continued its sinking course. When the last rays had finally guttered to gray, the Second Doctor steeled himself, just in case a tirade was coming and he was unprepared for it. There was nothing of the kind, so Two released his held breath, a puff of frigid air trailing out to join the sleet only a few feet away. He strained his ears, trying to calculate if the sleet had eased whatsoever. No such luck, of course, and even if it had the icy rain was echoing and reechoing, making it impossible to tell.

“And what if it doesn’t ease at all?”

The Second startled slightly at his successor’s softly-spoken question. He had read his thoughts, or perhaps remembered _being_ him and thinking them. Suppressing a weighty shiver, Two forced a small laugh with a sharp edge.

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one who asks that? I’m the stupid one.”

“You’re not,” Three sighed tersely, as though he found it hard to force that out. “I shouldn’t have implied it.”

“Well. Thank you,” the younger Doctor said at last, almost giggling even though it felt hard to find air. “Apologies are only making it more awkward between us, you know.”

“I’m fully aware,” the older agreed wryly.

Reassured that things were at least relatively back to normal between them (two unsaid hypocrites, the both of them), the Second Doctor turned his attention to more pressing matters.

Forcing quivery legs to support him, he crawled forward, closer to the outside where the moon had risen, its light filtering oddly through the thick sleet-drops. It was hard to believe something so beautiful could be so deadly. By that light, he squinted down at his hands, wordlessly biting his lower lip. Was it a trick of the damp or was he losing feeling in his fingers?

“What are you doing?” the Third Doctor asked warily.

“My dear fellow…” the Second Doctor countered nervously. “You said a full day on Trichi is like two by our standards?”

“Yes, why?”

“Does that mean, then, that a full Trichi _night_ is like two?” Not waiting for an answer, the smaller man recoiled from the storm, moving as far back under their overhang as possible so he was almost sitting beside the taller. Pursing chapped lips, he held out his hands for the other Doctor to inspect.

The Third Doctor frowned deeply, brushing thin crystal frost from his fingertips. “Do you feel that?”

“More or less.” The words were crisp, all too detached, especially from the quick tongue of this particular regeneration. “Is there anything else you know about Trichi I don’t? Such as how cold it’s going to get?”

It took the Third Doctor a full minute to answer, busy wiping the rest of the frost from his predecessor’s palms and thereby letting it cling to his own. “Well, if it was cold enough for the Trichians to let us die from it, hypothetically…”

“Oh, dear…we _are_ in trouble, aren’t we?” the Second murmured, pulling his hands back to rub them furiously together. The Third followed his example, dragging his own hands down his wet pants, trying futilely to dry them.

“If the storm doesn’t stop, yes.” At least he didn’t currently have a fragile companion, Three mused, shivering a little despite all his stoic willpower. He was able to be forthright with himself.

“You come off as quite the pessimist sometimes, old chap,” the Second Doctor announced abruptly, obviously trying to goad him on so he wouldn’t have to think about the impending cold. “It’ll stop soon. Undoubtedly!”

“Oh, please be quiet! That’s like saying the solution to a problem was easy,” the Third argued, aggravation clear in his voice. Just like that, he was proven right by the stirring of wind, coaxing sleet to encroach into their little hideaway. The taller Doctor withdrew his lanky legs, gasping a breathless curse in their home tongue.

“Th-There’s no need for that word, Fancypants,” the Second burst out, clutching at his closest arm. “We’ll be fine!”

He was shaking too—whether it was from the cold or his own panic, Three didn’t know and he didn’t answer, but he had a feeling the clown sensed the string of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘buts’ he was tamping down. He also tamped down any temptation to pull his arm away from the other Doctor’s grip. It was the only contact with another being he had available to him and in a way it was comforting.

The air, damp and cool to begin with, was positively clammy now with the cold water spray blowing in, and the fact that they’d been soaked during the escape from the palace didn’t help. More time passed in stiff, frozen silence, both Doctors shivering more violently. Gallifreyans were naturally cool, but it almost seemed as though as one grew colder, it affected the other.

For a while the Third Doctor was certain out of the two of them, he would freeze first; moist velvet and satin, stiffening as they froze, were near intolerable. He would have shucked off the velvet coat long ago if it hadn’t meant the loss of a layer between him and the ice. His nose, cheeks, and hands were already numb and despite the meager shielding of his hair his ears were on their way.

As he shifted to get more comfortable, he realized that the other Doctor’s grip on his arm had fallen lax and he glanced at him, a surge of worry painfully reheating his system. His other self had his eyes closed, frost clinging to his lashes and hair, a dark contrast against his face.

“Don’t!” he hollered, using what strength he could gather to shake him sharply. “Wake up!”

His counterpart took a shivering breath, eyes flickering open and zeroing in on him. “Hmm…?”

“You f-fell asleep. By Rassilon, I th-thought you were dead,” the Third Doctor stammered, pressing an icy hand against his face through an unexpected wave of dizziness. He wasn’t thinking straight; he should have known that smaller body mass meant less time it took to freeze.

The Second shifted weakly and blinked a few times. His face had lost most of its color, leaving his skin pallid, tinged with a frightful shade of blue that brought the green in his eyes out starkly.

“Course not, dandy,” he murmured, his words oddly slurred together. “S’too soon t’become you.” Neither pointed out that since they were together, it was a weak point in time, meaning anything could happen.

 _Anything_ , even the Doctor setting aside his bloody pride. Huffing cold steam, he removed the hand over his face and used it to clumsily open his coat, draping half of it onto his predecessor. The Second Doctor accepted gratefully, shuddering closer. When they were finally touching, he felt much smaller and more childlike than he probably was in reality.

“Th’bright side is,” the Third told him, frowning slightly when he couldn’t keep his words from stringing together, “regeneration’s goin’ t’be very warm.”

“Mmhm…Let’s hope tha’I do…cos I think—” Mid-sentence the younger Time Lord seemed to shut off, slumping in on himself and staying that way.

The Third Doctor swallowed hard; all of his saliva seemed to have frozen in his throat. If the other Doctor was going to regenerate into him, that would mean these were his last moments. Fleetingly, out of nowhere he felt a stirring of regret. He wished he could have heard the TARDIS’ engines one last time before he left the world.

Just as his vision dissolved into blackness, his wish was granted.

*

When the Third Doctor woke again, it was a very slow process. His eyes seemed glued shut, reluctant to open at the same pace as his mind. Overall he felt…achy, but _warm_. To dispel some of the worsening throb in his body, particularly his extremities, he shifted, working blood toward them.

“Well, well,” a rich timbre greeted the movement, startling his eyes open. “You’ve finally decided to rejoin the world, I see. At least, the world you might prefer over your _last_ resting place.”

The words were true, the Third Doctor realized as he recognized the ceiling of the TARDIS infirmary. But how on earth had he gotten here? A flood of memory—warm, like everything else—brought him upright, wincing to find an IV in his arm. What caught his attention more fully, however, was the man standing at his bedside, grinning broadly.

“Doctor,” the man nodded at him cheerfully. If it was possible, his smile was growing wider, showing off all his teeth.

The Third Doctor stared at him, relaxing just slightly when he noticed the daft attire. Of course… No one else could sport clothing like that. A weak point had made room for another Doctor, who had remembered going through it and had come to their rescue.

A sudden crashing, followed by galloping footsteps, signaled the appearance of the Second—or was it third under the circumstances?—Doctor in the room. He peeked around the infirmary doorframe and his face brightened.

“Oh, good! I see you’re recovering as quickly as I did, old chap!” With that the smaller Doctor bounded further into the room to stand next to the tallest Doctor, easily dwarfed by him. “Well, _almost_ as quickly.”

“I have something that helps with that,” the strange Doctor offered as the Third deftly removed the IV and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Care for a jelly baby?”

With both of his other regenerations grinning at him like that, the Third Doctor had a feeling that all he cared for was saving the universe from their tangled time stream.


End file.
